The Secret of Annexe 3

'What makes you think she's an "old biddy", Inspector?'

'With a name like Doris Arkwright? Straight out of the Lancashire mills, isn't it? Pushing a sprightly ninety, I shouldn't wonder, and drives an ancient Austin.'

Sarah opened her mouth, but closed it again. Morse (as she watched him) had perched a pair of NHS half-lenses on his Jewish-looking nose and looked again at the short letter from Doris Arkwright.

'Do you think she's got anything to do with the case?' asked Sarah.

'Do I think so?' He waited for a few pregnant seconds before taking off his spectacles and looking at her quizzically. 'No, I don't think she's got anything at all to do with the murder. Do you, Miss Jonstone?'

CHAPTER TEN

Wednesday, January 1st: P.M.

He was once a doctor but is now an undertaker; and what he does as an undertaker he used to do as a doctor.

(MARTIAL)

FOR LEWIS, THE next two hours of the evening of New Year's Day were hardly memorable. A good deal of the earlier excitement had dissipated, with even the novelty of murder worn thin; and the Haworth Hotel now looked an uninviting place, its high-ceilinged rooms harshly lit by neon strips, its guests standing or sitting in small groups, quiet and unsmiling — and waiting. Morse had asked him to check (factually) with Phillips all the names and addresses of those staying in the hotel, and briefly himself to interview as many vital witnesses as he could find — with Phillips to take on the rest; to try to form a picture (synoptically) of the scene at the hotel on the previous evening; and to keep his antennae attuned (almost metaphysically, it appeared) for any signals from an unsuspected psychopath or any posthumous transmissions from the newly dead. Festivities — all of them, including the pantomine — had been cancelled, and the hotel was now grimly still, with not even the quiet click of snooker balls from the games room to suggest that murder was anything but a deadly serious matter.

Lewis himself had never spent a Christmas or a New Year away from home since his marriage; and although he knew that family life was hardly prize-winning roses all along the way, he had never felt the urge to get away from his own modest semi-detached house up in Headington over such holiday periods. Yet now — most oddly, considering the circumstances — he began to see for the first time, some of the potential attractions: no frenetic last-minute purchases from supermarkets; no pre-feastday preparations of stuffings and sauces; no sticky saucepans to scour; no washing-up of plates and cutlery. Yes! Perhaps Lewis would mention the idea to the missus, for it seemed perfectly clear to him as he spoke to guest after guest that a wondrously good time was being had by all — until a man had been found murdered.

Exactly where Morse had been during the whole of this period, Lewis had little idea, although (Lewis had heard part of it) the chief inspector had interviewed the woman on Reception at some considerable length — a woman (as Lewis saw her) most pleasingly attractive, with a quiet, rather upper-class manner of speaking that contrasted favourably with the somewhat abrasive questioning she was being subjected to — with Morse obviously still in a tetchy frame of mind after his altercations with the luckless Phillips, and apparently quite unconcerned about venting his temporary ill-humour on anyone and everyone, including Sarah Jonstone.

It was just after 10 p.m. that the police surgeon came back into the main building again, the inevitable long-ashed cigarette dropping from his lips, his black bag in one hand, two sheets of A4 in the other.

'My god, you do pick 'em, Morse!' began the surgeon as the three of them, Max, Morse and Lewis, sat down together in the deserted games room.

'Get on with it, Max!' said Morse.

The surgeon looked quickly at his notes — then began.

'One — he's a wasp, Morse.'

'He's a what?'

'He's a WASP — a White Anglo-Saxon Protestant — though he could well be a Catholic, of course.'

'Of course.'

Two — his age is about thirty to forty, though he could be twenty-nine or forty-one, for that matter.'

'Or forty-two,' said Morse.

The surgeon nodded. 'Or twenty-eight.'

'Get on with it!'

'Three — his height's five foot seven and a half inches. You want that in metres, Morse?'

'Not so long as it's accurate in inches.'

'Can't promise that.'

'Christ!'

'Four — he's dressed up as a Rastafarian.'

'Very perceptive!'

'Five — he's got a wig on: black, curlyish.'

'Something several of us could do with!'

'Six — he's got dreadlocks.'

'Which are?'

'Long, thin bits of hair, plaited into strands, with cylindrical beads at the end.'

'I saw them! It's just that I didn't know—'

'Seven — these strands of hair are stapled to the inside of the hat he's wearing.'

Morse nodded.

'Eight — this hat is a sort of baggy, felt "cap", with a big peak, a black-grey-white check pattern, filled out with folded toilet-paper. You want to know which brand?'

'No!'

'Nine — his face is darkened all over with what's known in theatrical circles as "stage-black".'

Again Morse nodded.

'Ten — this stage-black stretches down to the top of the shirt-level, just round his neck; the backs of the hands are similarly bedaubed, Morse, but not the palms.'

'Is that important?'

'Eleven'—the surgeon ignored the question—'his light blue shirt has got six buttons down the front, all but the top one done up, long-sleeved, obviously very new and probably being worn for the first time.'

No comment from Morse.

'Twelve — his white trousers are made of some cheap summer-wear material, a bit worn here and there.'

'And nothing in the pockets,' said Morse; but it wasn't a question.

'Thirteen — he's got three longish chains round his neck: junk stuff that you'd find in a cheap second-hand shop.'

Morse was beginning to show the first signs of restlessness.

'Fourteen — there was a pair of sunglasses on the floor just between the two beds, the ear-hooks quite shallowly slanted.'

'As if they'd fall off his ears, you mean?'

'They did fall off his ears.'

'I see.'

'Fifteen — a false moustache, affixed with strong adhesive, still exactly in position across the upper lip.'

'Why do you say "affixed", instead of just plain "fixed"?'

'Sixteen — a pair of high-heeled, knee-level boots: highly polished, light maroon plastic.'

'You sure it's not a woman we've got there on the bed, Max?'

'Seventeen — time of death: difficult to judge.'

'As well we might have known!'